BATS OF THE BELGIAX CONGO 



561 



violence sweep across the count rv al- 

 most every day. A steady temj)erature 

 of al)0ut one hundred degrees, together 

 with tlie nioisture-hiden atmosphere, 

 accounts for the I'ijiening of fruits 

 tiiroughout the year. Upon these fruits 

 the fruit bats depend entirely for their 

 sustenance, but they have to movc>aliout 

 continually in 



search of a new 

 su})pl}'. Nowhere 

 else in iVfrica can 

 they find such 

 ideal conditions, 

 yet these two hun- 

 dred and fifty 

 thousand square 

 miles of uninter- 

 rupted forest are 

 inhabited by only 

 twenty-five differ- 

 ent kinds of fruit 

 bats. Most of these 

 are very rare. In 

 every region one 

 species at least is 

 common, but on 

 account of fre- 

 quent migrations, 

 a few other kinds 

 may appear for a 

 short time in great 

 numbers. From 

 the rest of Africa 

 only a dozen more 

 forms are known i, 

 but these occur 

 everywhere as oc- 

 casional strag- 

 glers. As here 



well-defined seasonal changes bring- 

 about alternating scarcity and abun- 

 dance of food supply, they are forced to 

 migrate. In the coastal districts, how- 

 ever, the cultivation of imported fruit 

 trees has altered the conditions so as to 

 make fruit available at all times. This 

 allows a few fruit bats to become resi- 

 dents. 



Fruit bats (Pteropodida?) are re- 

 stricted to Africa and tropical Asia. 



The soft folds of a bat's wing inemlirane func- 

 tion as umbrellas during the numerous rain 

 storms in the Congo forest ; at other times they 

 protect the bat's eyes from the glare of the sun. 

 Wlien a bat is sleeping we can see little of tlie 

 khaki-colored bunch of fur, but when he is dis- 

 turbed the finely chiseled fox-like liead emerges 

 quickly, on the lookout for danger 



'flicy are absent from South America, 

 which has, Jiowever, the blood-sucking 

 \am])ir('s ( Desmodontida^). These are 

 not found in Africa, and yet they, 

 more than all others, have helped to in- 

 crease the e.vil fame and superstitious 

 beliefs about bats all over the world. 

 Fi'uit bats have nowhere well-estab- 

 lished roosts but 

 are naturally more 

 common in dis- 

 tricts covered by 

 rain forest than 

 in the more arid 

 regions, with well- 

 marked rainy and 

 dry seasons. Fruit 

 is of course scar- 

 cest after the an- 

 nual fires have 

 eaten slowly across 

 the country and 

 left the shrubs 

 and trees leafless 

 and the fields in 

 such a barren con- 

 dition that a com- 

 ])arison with the 

 effects of heavy 

 frosts in temper- 

 ate climates sug- 

 gests itself. Within 

 a very short time 

 the grass sprouts 

 again and flowers 

 often cover the 

 trees before the 

 leaves have ap- 

 peared. It is of 

 great importance 

 to the fruit bats that only a few degrees 

 north of the ecfuator the seasons are the 

 reverse of what they are at that time 

 south of the equator. Furthermore, the 

 essential features of the flora remain 

 nearly the same over the entire eastern 

 and southern Ethiopian subregions. 

 Thus the fruit bats of these districts. 

 I)y adjusting their migratory flights, 

 might easily escape the unpleasant and 

 otherwise* inevitalde conditions of an- 



